Deliver Me From Evil
by war wound
Summary: It is three in the morning and Moritz is awake, he rolls papers back and forth in his fingers until they are soft, he wishes for everything to be clean, he constantly sees ripples of water in his head.


Sometimes it didn't work out the way he had wanted it to. Well, most of the time it didn't. He finds himself lying in bed, three o' clock in the morning, staring up at the ceiling, unblinking, restless. He always lost feeling after three in the morning. It wasn't something he could explain. It wasn't _feeling_, he didn't really do that anymore, but it was the closest he had to being human that he could imagine. He fusses with the sheets in his hands, wrinkles the fabric. All of his books are rolled up at the edges, every paper that comes in contact with his hands is pressed back and forth, little wrinkles in _everything_, it's all ruined, rubbed soft, back and forth, he loses points on homework sometimes, just like how he would lose points when he doodled on classwork in elementary school, it was unclean, unwanted. It was habitual. It couldn't be stopped.

He wipes at his eyes, doesn't register that he's been crying. He can do it so quietly that he doesn't notice most of the time. At three in the morning, he can't wake his parents, he has to be quiet, so he sobs in his head, thrashes about, screams and howls and _do you ever just have so much negative evergy that you want to KILL something just rip it apart piece by piece and dear God I am so afraid of everything of moving of effort of myself please deliver me from evil amen_. He shoots up into a sitting position, stops moving, looks around without moving his neck, imagines his eyes darting side from side. His room is unbelievably grey. He pauses, thinks, and the thought in his head is _loud _like a sudden ripple in pure, untouched water and everytime he thinks it's like something jagged cutting into something clean it was just all so _unclean_. He forgets the thought, too distracted by what it did to his mind. He throws back the covers, swings his feet over the side, moves out of the bed.

Forgets his intentions. And sometimes that is the best for him. Movement without intention was movement that was rendered stagnant, anti-movement, unmoving, and that was best, because when he moved he progressed, he moved forward, into the future, and the future just _scares _him and he thinks about six in the morning, when his alarm goes off, and he has to take a shower and sometimes it's the crippling effort of taking a shower that breaks him, six-fifteen in the morning, crying in the shower because it's too hard to stand there and not _think_. He is scared when he thinks about walking to the bus stop, he is terrified when he thinks of walking up to his friends, his friends seeing him, looking him over, asking him where he's been, and he has to reply that he was too sick to go to school yesterday, and they nod in understanding and it's over but _oh god that repititious conversation will drive him mad_, and sometimes someone will say, "wow, you miss a lot of school," and he remembers how he's missed at least one day every single week since the semester started, and he has to shrug and say he's just sick a lot, he's just sick, he's sick.

And he's scared of being sick. He's terrified of _moving _and he's standing there and it's three-thirty in the morning, he wants to scream, he tries to scream and no sound comes out, he cannot make a sound, he cannot bellow or squeak because sound is movement sound is waves cutting through the air and moving is _wrong _and he tells himself that when he feels his leg bouncing up and down as he sits, when he feels his fingers twiddling with each other as he speaks to people, when he feels his eyelid twitch every five minutes. He cannot stop moving because he wishes for stagnancy, and he does not get what he wants, he is always thrust forward.

He moves forward to his dresser, pulls the middle drawer open, sees his school uniform pressed neatly, no wrinkles in it because clothing is not paper, he cannot roll fabric between his fingers until it is soft so he does not, it is clean, like how he wishes to be, knows he will not be. He moves his uniform aside, passes by the rolling pairs of socks, listens to them thump against the old wood, reaches for his box of cuff links, pulls out the box, opens it, moves aside the two pairs sitting there _he only has two pairs of cuff links why do his parents not notice that he doesn't need a box for two pairs why don't they notice that he does not have more than two pairs of cuff links why doesn't anybody notice that_, pulls out his gun, fingers it, feels the way it is cold against his skin, it is a nice kind of coolness, unlike the cold his feet are feeling from standing bare on the hardwood floor, he wishes everything could feel as cool as the gun. He shuts the box and puts it away, closes the drawer, fiddles with his gun.

He takes it back to his bed, sits down, legs hanging over the side, scoots closer, feet planted flat on the floor, two feet apart, hunches over, drops his gun from hand to hand, fiddles, little movements, little tics that he always has. Stares straight ahead, unfeeling, unthinking, there is a cool gun in his hand, he cannot roll its edges soft, but that is okay, some things don't have to be made soft, this gun is one of them. Cool and hard in his hands, sturdy, the way a man _should be_ instead of soft and flustered, lukewarm from blushing, blistering from stress. He pulls on the trigger but the safety is on, the trigger sticks, reverts back to its normal position. He will not flick the safety off.

He lifts the gun up to his face, stares down into the barrel of the gun, closes his eyes. There is whiteness, everything is clear, there are no ripples in the water, except for when he notices that there are no ripples in the water, then there are ripples. This is predictable, so he opens his eyes, sees the barrel of the gun staring back at him. He pulls the trigger once more but the safety is on, the trigger sticks, reverts back to its normal position. He will not flick the safety off.

He puts the gun at his temple, takes a long breath in, sits there, brow furrowed, arm feeling heavy. His eyes are weightless in their sockets, he is not tired, but if he convinces himself to sleep he will be able to sleep, but he hates sleeping, the kind of stagnancy that he can get, the stagnancy he craves for, but he cannot handle stagnancy, he cannot have what is good for him, so he does not sleep. It is four in the morning. He feels the barrel of the gun cool on his temple, he feels simplicity rush over him. Everything is white and clean when death is close. When there is no future, only now, and now will be over in seconds. No future is what he needs, what he craves. He may not have anything, but he may have this, this final act. Everything is so _clean_. He pulls the trigger a third time but the safety is on, the trigger sticks, reverts back to its normal position. He will not flick the safety off.


End file.
